Anxiety Archives - Hypnotherapy Surrey

Hidden anxiety

Millions of people are affected by anxiety every year. Many live and cope with their anxiety on their own, suffering quietly. Anxiety is something we all experience at some time in our lives, but for most, it is just a short term experience.

Anxiety affects us both physically and psychologically and in its normal form will help us stay alert, flag up any danger and help us with all round performance.

The panic and adrenaline that anxiety produces is what kept our forebears alert and alive and is referred to as the ‘fight or flight’ response. Even though we don’t have the dangers that our ancestors did, adrenaline still helps us today. However, in excess it can, in many cases, work against us, causing us to have panic and fear when there is nothing to worry about.

Enduring a great deal of anxiousness for a long time can have an unhealthy impact on a person’s life.

Panic, fear, lack of sleep, palpitations, dizziness, feeling sick and anxiety attacks are just some of the symptoms connected with anxiety. Just the thought of getting through the day is enough to produce anxiousness, and sufferers do not know how to stop the worry cycle. Chronic anxiety can impact anyone at any time of their life, even though it is reported to be more common in childhood and early adulthood.

Many people with this condition report they feel like they’re ‘going mad’. They think that no one could understand them and truly feel uncomfortable and ashamed. They suffer in silence, hiding their issue from friends, family, children and colleagues. Their confidence in their body and mind is no longer there, so they put up an emotional and behavioural pretence.

Sad to say, it’s common practice for victims to hide this issue, believing there’s just no hope. But this can, in fact, feed the anxiousness and make it much worse.

Discovering and taking care of the root cause of the issue is the most effective way of removing the anxiety. If there is no longer an underlying reason, there will no longer be an effect.

Hypnotherapy techniques are extremely helpful in alleviating anxiety and tackling the underlying difficulties. Hypnotherapy helps the person discover new techniques for thinking, feeling and coping with their problems.

A hypnotherapist will aim to diminish a person’s detrimental views by suggesting favourable feelings to the subconscious. The mind is a very powerful thing, and hypnotherapy uses the resources of our subconscious mind to regain influence over our thoughts.

Paul Howard, an anxiety specialist from The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy, based in Surrey, said, “Anxiety comes in many shapes and sizes and, therefore, it is crucial to understand each client’s triggers and beliefs about their anxiety. Once a good understanding has been reached, it is normally fairly straightforward to adjust and refocus their thoughts onto a more appropriate path.”

The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy is committed to raising awareness to the help that hypnotherapy can bring to sufferers of anxiety issues. They have specialists that cover various issues such as anxiety, weight control, insomnia, psoriasis and smoking. They have been in practice since 2002 and have male and female therapists on staff.

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By Paul White 1 Comment

Childhood phobic disorders; should they be sorted out early?

Phobias are an irrational and overwhelming fear of a predicament or object. Phobias are much more distinct than just being slightly concerned about something; it is a severe fear and avoidance of a particular scenario or object that characterises a phobic anxiety. In really serious cases, phobic anxiety can cause isolation, anxiety and panic attacks and depression symptoms. Individuals who suffer from a fear of spiders have an overwhelming and debilitating fear every time they come into contact with any sort of spider.

Typically, phobias are long lasting and can occur at any age. They often occur because of a given incident or trauma (e.g. being frightened by an episode with a pigeon in early childhood) or maybe a learned behaviour from a brother or sister or parent. Many children will be scared of something sooner or later in their life, being afraid of strangers, separation anxiety or just being afraid of the dark. A good number of these fears will disappear and this is an entirely normal part of a child’s progression. If these worries and anxieties build into something more, parents ought to keep a close eye and strive to recognise the signs and symptoms in an attempt to lessen any adverse outcome for the child.

If childhood phobias are not addressed in the early stages, these behaviours rapidly turn into a habit and can vary from mild anxiety to substantial terror and panic and anxiety attacks. When the phobia is severe, it can have an unfavourable impact on the child’s social progression and well-being. These phobias can be anything from a fear of balloons to a fear of going to school. For some people, parents tackle these behaviours early by suggesting the child face up to the situation that cause the anxiousness. In a few circumstances, this approach can work well and make the anxiety subside on the other hand it could also strengthen the fear and then make the child want to stay away from the object more.

Avoidance can be very attractive but it contributes to these behaviours becoming habit forming. These phobic habits must be resolved rather than avoided to reduce the chance of carrying these phobias over into the adult years.

By tackling these habits early, hypnosis may help the child overcome these phobias in a simple and helpful way. Hypnotherapy processes are extremely beneficial in treating children and teenagers as they have a much better imagination at their young age. Children enjoy visualising and utilising their creativity to produce the tools and strength to get rid of their fears.

Hypnotherapy approaches can be a very useful and productive treatment for children and most only need 1 or 2 sessions.

The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy is committed to raising awareness to the help that hypnotherapy can bring to sufferers of psychological issues. They have specialists that cover various issues such as anxiety, weight control, insomnia, psoriasis and smoking. They have been in practice since 2002 and have male and female therapists on staff.

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By Paul Howard 1 Comment

Our 5 Top Fears

Everyone has some fears. This does not matter where you live, your age, your colour or creed, fear is a component of the human experience, it is part of our make-up. In fact, without having it, our survival chances would be considerably reduced. Fear is designed to keep us safe, it stops us crossing a road when there are cars coming and it stops us touching a fire or going too close to the edge of a cliff.

When fear is relevant, it forces us to take measures to keep us safe, this is normal and natural. We need to understand that fear itself is a normal and natural response to a dangerous circumstance. It is information and offers us a greater understanding of our environment and ourselves.

There are five well-accepted worries that all of us share as a society.

Death

This is the fear of no longer being here or dying. From the day we’re born we are designed to survive each and every other animal, so the fear of death is completely natural. When we all of a sudden face a dangerous situation, our heart rate would instantly increase because our body is being prepared to do anything it can to extract itself from the risk.

Mutilation

This is a fear of our body being harmed or changed in a detrimental way. We require our bodies to be in perfect working order to provide us the best possibility of survival. When we are scared of specific animals, spiders or other creatures, their fear originates from the intrinsic fear we all have of mutilation.

Loss of Independence

This is an anxiety about loss of control. This is generally brought on by the feeling that we have no control, either over ourselves, our environment or the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Exclusion

This is the fear of a loss of connection, or total disconnection from an individual or society itself. The fear of not being respected or being overlooked. This fear is normally related to other social anxieties.

Ego-Loss

This fear is about avoiding any scenarios where we may be ashamed or humiliated. Whenever we begin to disapprove of ourselves, either through low self-worth or lack of confidence, this fear will often be activated.

All of us hold these fears deep within our minds. Someplace deep inside you, they sit and wait to provide help if they’re required.

If you actually feel that your anxiety is troubling you more than it should, perhaps it’s time for you to do something to really get your life back to normal. These fundamental five fears in the list above are there to keep us safe and sound, alive and interacting in a beneficial way towards ourselves, as well as others.

If you are growing to be, or have become an anxious person at unwanted times, perhaps you could benefit from some specialist help. Hypnotherapeutic approaches can be a fantastic help when it comes to dealing with the factors behind unnecessary fear. We will probably all try to solve any inappropriate fears by ourselves first, but on a great number of occasions we simply will not have the ability to resolve them because they are maintained at a subconscious level. This, however, is an area where hypnotherapeutic tactics excel.

Paul Howard, a qualified hypnotherapist from The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy, based in Surrey, said “Even though we see these fears on a regular basis, most clients don’t actually know what they are and why they have them”.

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By Paul White 1 Comment

Anxiety in children

Anxiety is defined as long term stress and can affect the sufferer psychologically, emotionally and physically, and frequently all three. Negative presumptions of future events can cause big problems in children and the way these negative thinking styles are setup may vary hugely. Children do not have as much control over their lives as adults, so they are likely to become anxious when confronting a scenario that is beyond their control.

The effects of anxiety in children

The world is a complex and sometimes confusing place, so children can, quite naturally, actually feel a little anxious every now and then. These periods of anxiety are generally self-contained and pass quickly, causing no lasting problems. However, there are some children who find they are routinely plagued by anxiety and panic.

Anxiety affects the child physically in a wide array of ways. Common signs of panic and anxiety include stomach pains, turmoil, sleep problems, or lack of breath.

Panic or anxiety in children can come on as a result of a good number of things, including sibling rivalry, bullying, homework, or playground fights. When a child experiences worry, stress or shyness as a result of panic or anxiety, it can impact their life in a potentially unfavourable way. Avoidance of social situations can be common. For instance, if they are bullied, they could become panicked at the idea of going to school.

Children could have trouble sleeping, become moody, exhibit a lack of concentration at school, neglect social events and even try drug use, if the situation just isn’t addressed early enough. It is best to catch anxiety in children fast so that it does not result in lifelong problems or issues that go on to influence their adult life.

Just what is the best way to resolve anxiety in children?

When a child is experiencing anxiety attacks, it is likely that the behaviours will be brought on as a result of the beliefs held at a subconscious level, which is where hypnotherapy strategies come into play. Hypnotherapeutic treatments can be particularly effective, because it allows them to contend with these subconscious ideas, making use of their most powerful asset – imagination.

Some children have trouble explaining how they are feeling, and sometimes they just simply don’t know what the feeling is. The hypnotherapist should try to look at the problems in their life from the child’s standpoint. Kids are more open to hypnotherapy than adults, since they will be more likely to enjoy daydreaming than grownups, and have active imaginations. A child can, from time to time, be in a deep hypnotherapeutic state of relaxation within minutes, whereas some adults can take considerably longer to reach a similar state. Like role play, children can use hypnotherapy to let go of their troubles and let their imagination run riot. They utilise the hypnotherapeutic state to visualise and create imagery of their difficulties.

As a starting point, once the requirements of consent have been handled, the hypnotherapist would seek to pinpoint the situations and circumstances which make the child genuinely feel anxious. Having established the causes, they can be addressed by the implementation of some simple hypnotherapeutic techniques, which will probably help the child set up some new suitable beliefs.

Paul White, from The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy, based in Surrey, explained why, in their view, hypnotherapy solutions are extremely effective in dealing with anxiety in children. “Once children understand that their thoughts and feelings are different, and that their thoughts can influence their feelings, the therapeutic process has started”.

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By Paul Howard Leave a Comment

Stage Fright

Stage fright is just another form of presentation nerves. Stage fright is all about the fear of judgement. People who struggle with stage fright are without a doubt predicting failure. By that I mean they are predicting negative judgement from those watching.

I have worked with many people who have suffered from stage fright, from Shakespearean actresses to a top opera singer. Without exception they feel that they will be judged negatively by either the audience and sometimes their peers.

To show how this works I arranged for an actress with severe stage fright to go on stage in a bear costume so nobody in the audience would know who it was. As soon as this happened her stage fright evaporated.

This fear of judgement is typical of virtually all forms of social phobia. The fear exists because, at a subconscious level, for some reason, they have a belief that they are not good enough in some regard.

Emma said, “I was asked to give an after dinner speech at a function recently of about 120 people. My worst nightmare, having always suffered from nerves even in small meetings of 5 or so people. I approached Paul Howard for help!!
Paul helped me re-train and focus my mind through hypnotherapy and positive thinking, by replaying a positive video in my mind of the outcome of my speech. I also emulated someone who I admire who is an accomplished public speaker.
The evening was a great success. I still had some nerves, but once I stood up to give my speech these melted away. I have since been able to stand up in church and give a reading as well. I would really recommend the treatment for anyone who suffers from this debilitating condition.”

This belief is normally set up in early childhood. Often the cause can be traced back to a separation from the opposite sex parent at an early age, generally between the ages of 4 to 9, although separation from the same sex parent can have a similar effect but normally to a lesser degree.

For example, if a couple divorce with two children, a girl aged 6 and boy aged 4, and as a result of the divorce the father leaves the home, in my experience, the girl is much more likely to suffer from social phobia. However, if the mother leaves and the children stay with the father, the opposite occurs.

Hear Paul Howard talking about Kate Bush’s stage fright on BBC Radio

Parental separation is not the only cause of stage fright and presentation nerves. Critical parents or peers and bullying are prime causes for these types of social phobia as well.

The way it works is that, in those times of stress, there is generally significant negative feelings and emotions and because of that, the subconscious learns to avoid any future situations that may cause similar feelings. The subconscious mind does this by using the fight or flight response to encourage us to avoid these “danger” situations. It believes it is protecting us by avoiding any situation that may cause embarrassment or criticism.

The problem is that, in general, the number and type of situation tends to increase over time as the sufferer predicts more and more situations where they might possibly be criticised.

So what can you do about it?

Well, obviously hypnotherapy is a very rapid and effective way to get to the root problem and bring incite to the person about why they have these feelings about themselves. It can then go on to change those beliefs and make a real permanent change at a core level.

Hypnotherapy, although fast and effective, is not the only way. Insight can be gained through personal analysis and possibly counselling over a long period. When it comes to making changes in our belief systems, self-help books and some kind of coaching can be really helpful.

But what next?

After the beliefs about self, have been addressed, the next important order of business is to address the prediction mechanisms that the person uses to predict the outcome of what was previously a “danger” situation. We use hypnotherapy to get fast results but it can be achieved by repeatedly visualising how the situation would go if it was a positive outcome. If played often enough in your mind, you can achieve the same results, albeit a bit slower.

By using these techniques, you take away the underlying anxiety that was supporting the behaviour and create a much better prediction of the outcome. This allows the subconscious to feel more relaxed about the “danger” situation and ultimately allow you to enter it feeling calm and relaxed.

Oh, by the way, the Shakespearean actress no longer suffers from stage fright. She now feels good about herself and is pretty ambivalent to thoughts of someone judging her negatively. Now she concentrates on giving her best performance and “to hell” with the critics.

Do you get anxious when performing in public?

If you suffer with stage fright, presentation nerves or any form of social phobia, watch a new video I have created just for you.
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